Evidence-based Design
We collaborated with both administration and key healthcare staff to reorganize the entire hospital around enhancing the patient experience. Since caring for the caregiver helps realize safe and responsive service, our design approach considered the perspective of the nursing staff, as well as the patient.
The concepts we advanced were informed by findings from our longstanding research program and the Center for Health Design's Pebble Project, with which the hospital partners. The plan organizes 36-bed floors into three nursing neighborhoods of twelve beds to provide the greatest flexibility for staffing based on census and acuity of patients. Nursing stations are hybrids of a central station in combination with four decentralized work areas outside patient rooms for charting, consultation, and discussion. Post-occupancy, hospital institutional data indicated that patient satisfaction increased substantially, and the degree of practitioner involvement in the design process correlated with the highest ranking of scores relative to the workplace environment.
